Chapter Eighteen

“Rhian? Hi, it’s Penny. How are you doing?” Penny listened for a moment and then said, “Look, I might be on to something that could shed some light on how Rhodri died, but I need your help. Here’s what I need you to do.” After explaining that she needed Rhian to return to work tomorrow, Penny smiled when Rhian said she was more than ready to return to work, and that if Penny didn’t mind, she’d like to come in that afternoon because she and her mam were getting on each other’s nerves something awful. After letting Rhian know it would be more than all right for her to return to work immediately, Penny asked her to ring Victoria and let her know she’d be there soon.

“Oh, and Rhian, would you please text or e-mail me a photo of Rhodri? Soon as you can. Thanks.”

A few minutes later, knowing that Victoria would be happy to have Rhian back on the reception desk that afternoon, Penny relaxed into her seat on the bus, and it wasn’t long before she arrived back in Bangor. As the bus entered the city, she gazed up at her destination, the imposing late Gothic-style Main Arts building of Bangor University perched high on a hill overlooking the city.

Built in the early twentieth century of buff-coloured sandstone with a roof of Welsh slate, the building had weathered to a dull grey. It featured a cathedral-like central tower, stone chimney stacks, dormers, gables, and elegant windows, that radiated a spirit of robust Edwardian academic tradition and an undeniable sense of permanence.

After a short walk from the bus station, Penny darted across a busy street and walked up the long set of stairs to the Main Arts building. After pausing to take in the grandeur and elegance of the vaulted ceiling in the vestibule, she followed the signage to a bright, modern café with both table and sofa seating. She looked around for a table as she waited in the queue for a coffee. The tables were full, but one or two, meant for four, had empty seats.

Two young women seated at one of the tables broke off their animated conversation as Penny approached.

“I’m sorry,” she said with a hopeful smile, “all the tables are occupied. Would you mind terribly if I sat here?”

“No, not at all,” said one of the women, and after a moment or two, they resumed their conversation.

“Anyway, it’s difficult to say who gets to decide what is beautiful,” said the other woman. “And when. It depends on the time, doesn’t it? I mean, no one really liked the work of the Impressionists when they were starting out. It was too modern! It broke the rules!”

“Exactly!” said her companion, who had been tracing little circles on the shiny black tabletop. “I wonder which starving artists today will be the must-have painters of tomorrow.”

“That’s a good question. Is it even possible? Does art occupy the same place in the world that it did even fifty years ago?”

Result! thought Penny. Art students. Now I just have to find a way into their conversation. She listened for a few more minutes, and then, starting to worry they might finish their lunches and leave, she said, “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation, and it brought me back to my own university days. I studied art history at Mount Allison University.” Met with blank faces, she added, “In New Brunswick. Canada.”

“Oh, cool,” said one. “One of our courses included some Canadian painters. The Pacific Northwest. Emily Carr?”

Penny smiled at the way she said the name Emily Carr uncertainly, as a question.

“I hear the professors here are excellent,” Penny said. “In fact, maybe you can help me. I’m looking for an old acquaintance of mine. Michael Quinn. He teaches here, I believe.”

The two women exchanged an uncomfortable glance, and the one who had mentioned Emily Carr replied, “He used to teach here. But he didn’t return this autumn. He’s not on the faculty anymore.”

“Oh, I see,” said Penny. “Did he …?” She let the sentence trail off.

“There were, ah, complaints,” said the student. “From female students,” she added, in case Penny didn’t quite get the picture.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I worked with him on an antiques appraisal show, and I just happened to be in Bangor today, so I thought I’d look him up. I don’t suppose you know where he is, do you?”

“I heard he’d gone to Dublin,” said the student with the blonde ponytail.

“He sent a text to one of his students,” said the other woman, “although she wasn’t particularly happy to hear from him. Apparently he’s working for an auction house in Dublin, doing fine art appraisals.”

“That would make sense,” said Penny. “He spotted right away that some sketches that a friend of mine had acquired in the 1960s were valuable. He definitely has an eye for quality work.”

The two students exchanged a meaningful glance, and one said, with a slight smirk, “Quality work isn’t all he has an eye for.”

Penny’s phone indicated an incoming text, and she glanced at it, then opened the photo of Rhodri that Rhian had just sent. “Do either of you know him?” she asked, holding out her phone to the woman seated beside her. “He was a student here.”

The woman took the phone, looked at the photo, and then handed it to her friend, who glanced at it and returned it to Penny.

“Yes, that’s Rhodri Phillips. He was in our year, but I heard he dropped out. I only knew him to see him, really,” said the woman beside her.

The woman across the table from her frowned. “I know I’m asking a lot of questions,” said Penny, “but it’s just that something terrible happened to Rhodri, and his family has asked me to see if I can get some answers for them. If you haven’t heard, I’m sorry to have to tell you he died on Saturday night under suspicious circumstances.”

“That’s terrible,” said the woman across from Penny. “How did it happen?”

*   *   *

The three women chatted about Rhodri for a few more minutes until the students indicated they had to leave if they didn’t want to be late for class, and after gathering up the remnants of their meal, they left Penny alone at the table. She got out her phone, Googled auction houses in Dublin, and settled on a couple as being likely places for Michael Quinn to be working.

As much as she wanted to walk directly to the Bangor railway station and depart immediately for Ireland, as she’d been tempted to do earlier, she realised this wasn’t practical. As a Canadian, she needed a passport to enter Ireland, although a British citizen did not. So the journey would have to wait one more day, giving her time to go home, pick up her passport, book passage on the morning ferry, and pack an overnight bag. She walked back to the area where all the buses gathered and once again boarded the X5 for Llandudno. Maybe the necessity of deferring the journey to Dublin for one day was a good thing, she told herself. A twenty-four-hour cooling-off period to rethink this whole daft plan. You don’t have to go to Dublin, she told herself. In fact, why are you going in search of Michael Quinn? What will you say if you find him? She couldn’t answer that question, but by the time she reached Conwy and changed buses for Llanelen, she knew she was going and she’d work out what to say when she got there. Assuming she could find him, of course.